We just had an election, and it's been interesting that very, very little political discussion has occurred on this forum over the past few months. Frankly, over the past few years.

I tend to shy away from political discussions unless I'm in a room with like-minded people. But I was just curious what everyone thought about the results of the election. I think I'm only aware of a few of you guys' political "leanings" ...

Are there some of you elated that Obama won? Or are you thinking America is well on its way to Hell in a hand basket?

Just glad it is over, frankly. I've always really admired Barrack though I'm not sure I agree with everything he is doing. I find the never ending dividing and exploiting of the electorate into races, parties, genders, classes, etc., insulting, depressing, cynical and destructive. Both sides do it. GOP needs to get some hot half Hispanic, half Af-American woman as their mouth piece next time around. The guys are being elected President not King. Sometimes I think folks lose sight of that.

I really didn't care either way. But since you asked, I secretly wanted Romney to win because I'm pretty sick of black people Nigga-fying (new term) Obama the way they do. This was the most racially motivated election in history and it made me sick to my stomach. Most of the black people that voted for Obama only did it because he was a black man, although they would never admit to that. Most of them don't even know the name of their state's governor, or the judge that they checked on their ballot, but they know "Black President". It's idiocy.

I didn't vote because I felt there was no one to vote for. Plus, I believe that the races are fixed and the people who really rule the world already had chosen who the winner would be. To me, it's just the illusion of choice, instead of there actually being a choice. IMO, there is a one party system that is moving us toward a one world government. But even if that wasn't the case, there still was no one to vote for IMO because one guy is a Mormon, and the other claims the name of the Lord but supports abortion, homosexuality and a bunch of other anti-biblical principals. I don't believe in "a lesser of two evils". Either your'e for God, or not. And if your'e not, then I'm not for you.

But me being a black guy, when I told everyone that I didn't vote, they looked at me and spoke to me as if I had cheated on my wife. And the most irritating thing, they twisted scriptures to make me feel bad about not voting (for the president, I might add). It was all bias and I've come to the conclusion that black people are the new racists. They try to pull that Malcom X, Harriet Tubman, MLK bullcrap and say "you know what people had to go through to fight for your right to vote? You should exercise that right". Nothing gets my blood boiling more

I had one guy ask me if I was voting, and I told him I wasn't and explained why. After he gave me the expected reaction, he told me that he was going to vote. I sarcastically said "why because you don't want the black guy to lose?" As I expected, he said "Yup".

It's disgusting. And I wanted Romney (still, not caring either way) to win because I knew that if he won black people would lose their minds and I just couldn't wait to see it. It's bias, it's bigotry and it's racist. I actually know of people that made songs about how Obama's gonna save this country and all that crap, something you've never seen black people do for any president. The last time black people made a song for a historic figure was Martin Luther King, Jr. and he wasn't running for president. Some people even refer to Obama as "savior". And the worst thing is how many people in the Church I saw backing this dude, as Satanic as he is. I was disappointed above all in them. I mean, Mitt Romney is a fraud too, but I'm black, so I have to deal with the ignorant blacks around me. I was very irritated with how people tried to make him one of the homies. "My Nigga Obama". "F*ck Mitt Romney, he a white nigga. He gone have us picking cotton". "Obama got swag". Ugh! I'm gettin pissed just thinking about it. It's stupid. And they truly believe this guy will save this country, which will never happen because of the sinful state that this country is in. The U.S.A. is literally a modern-day Sodom and Gomorra. This country will never be saved. This is why I don't care who the President is. I mean, Jesus is my president, King, governor, senator, mayor...All of the above. That's who I vote for. He's the only one worthy of a vote.

I can see how someone of your belief system is uncomfortable with either one. I thought it was really funny how about a month before the election that Billy Graham decreed that Mormonism was an acceptable branch of Christianity rather than an heretical cult as it had been portrayed before. The races, the religions, etc., are now political groups. I guess they have always been. You are dead on about the racism or really just us-ism regarding Obama but, OTOH, it is not historically insignificant and was part of what appealed to me about him. It is past time for someone other than white men to hold this office. I lean Democratic anyway and am in favor of most of the anti-Biblical things you point out, however, I understand your position. I don't really think folks are so worried about equality as they are empowerment. Equality is a myth anyway.

Funny you should mention one party and the judge on the ballots. Here in Alabama aside from the Pres election there were only two other offices that were not GOP running unopposed and one was that d-bag Roy Moore who has made a name for himself about putting the granite block with the 10 Commandments in front of his court house. In other words, this is probably one of the reddest of the red states...in more ways than one.

As to the election being fixed and the world actually being run by a shadow government, I suppose there has always been some truth to that. all the folks who peeled off millions and millions to give to the pol campaigns will be waiting for their reward either with sweetheart contracts or offices. There is no perfect world that used to exist "before I met your mother and everything was great!" It sounds a bit like that if it were possible you might prefer a Bible based gov't. not unlike the nations run by Islamic Rule elsewhere or when the crown and the church had it all sewed up in Europe back in the day. Be very careful what you wish for.

You certainly are not alone in feeling there was no one to vote for. As often as not, people are voting against someone. But, like I said, I like Barrack and appreciate a guy finding his way to the WH from the depths of the Proletariat rather than the more typical monied and landed gentry American aristocrats. i realize this is being classist but it is important in my view that a guy have a first hand knowledge of what it is like to be a regular person. I'm not from the eat-the-rich school though and I find this aspect of his message kind of ugly and cynical. Obama's ascent is not really as story bookish as it may appear or as folks would like to believe it is but it is still a remarkable tale and one that would not have happened in most countries. As messed up as America may be there are still some things about it that are pretty grand. You wanted Romney to win to see your fellow blacks freak out. Part of the reason I wanted Obama to win is so every time a black guy complained about the system being rigged or how he couldn't get ahead because of the white power structure I could say, "Dude, the President is black!"

Obama won the presidency so when this country gets hit hard on many issues that all deal with our economy...... If you think not one person could turn things around from the last 8 years; then watch this next four......Its gonna be a nightmare.

I think the Republicans did an excellent job of campaigning for this election that it was about the economy. I think they were effective in making the majority of voters think their vote last week was a referendum on the economy.

But what I really believe this election was about social issues. My political beliefs lean liberal for the most part. But I do not necessarily disagree with the conservative belief of small federal government. That was what the Founding Fathers intended when they drafted the Constitution. But at the same time, I get the liberal mindset of small govt. makes sense for 13 states and 4 million people, but doesn't apply as well with 50 states and 310 million people. And in terms of issues of federal vs. state, I tend to have a much more moderate outlook, and look more for cutting out the fat of government whenever possible.

When I grew up in the 90s, the common complaint about politics was that the difference between Republicans/Democrats was not much except on a few key issues, but for the most part both parties were moderate/centrists. For whatever reason in this country over the past 15 years, we've seen that completely change, and now both parties move further apart.

What I'm slowly building towards is this issue that has rattled around my brain for a couple of months, but I think the Republican party itself has been hijacked by these uber-conservative people that are moving us "backwards."

It's funny because CJN expressed some of these beliefs. I don't know what started this, but I think 9/11 certainly played a major role in this, but I think "these people" saw that as not only an attack on America, but an attack on Christianity.

And "these people" want to end secularism in this country. Which I am vehemently against. And they'll often use the issues with Islam and the Middle East as a reason. But you don't fight theocratic fundamentalism with more theocratic fundamentalism. You fight it with secularism.

I have no issue with Mitt Romney, I have an issue with "those people" having influence and power had he been elected.

So to me this was about social issues. Gay marriage, civil rights, abortion, immigration, etc. all that jazz that people like to picket in the streets about.

And for me, the trade/off came down to 4 more years of a stagnant economy, to continue moving "forward" on many of those issues, then that was worth it.

The GOP has been hijacked by the Religious Right for the last few elections. There are a ton of people--me among them--who are social liberals and fiscal conservatives. But, above all else, I wanted to have the least militarist President. Unil we get out of the business of killing people we're not going to get "well." The war was so far down the list of people's motivations it was practically a non-issue. But every day people are dying over in Afghanistan and millions of dollars are being spent for essentially nothing but stubborn pride. That we are so worried about gay marriage relative to this is pathetic. I wouldn't care if they outlawed marriage for everyone--gay or straight. It's a largely outdated institution in the modern Western world anyway.

Count me as one who believed there was no one to vote for. I can't vote for Dems just due to philosophical differences in beliefs, and frankly Romney makes my skin crawl.

But in the big picture, its sorta irrelevant. Being a conservative in California sorta makes your opinion null and void on the national picture.

Try being a "liberal" in Alabama.

I read something the other day that was the "red state" response to the "blue state" secession missive that has made the rounds on the internet lately. Correct me if I am wrong, but the red response says in CA there are plenty of red votes but they are not in the areas of population concentration. Maybe even most counties were red but they were not heavily populated and, of course, the writer's take was we'll take Napa Vally and you can have Compton, etc. I really feel that the national divide is as often "rural" versus "urban" as anything. Something to ponder, 90% of the world's population live in big cities. And by big I mean the USA has two big cities...LA and NYC. Life in an urban setting is much more tangibly inter-reliant than living out in the sticks where--in a very real way--you are much more on your own (fire and police protection, entertainment, transportation). It def informs your outlook. Concurenntly, the outliers are less exposed to the richer tapestry of life that the urban dweller sees daily. You are not going to see too many Orthodox Jews or gay bars in Auburn, AL, for example.

Its pretty close to Rural vs Urban. And I did have to laugh at "richer tapestry of life", as that's an incredibly subjective point of view. I've seen that tapestry in downtown SF, and avoid it like the plague.

Yulin, you live in one of the greatest cities in the nation, IMO, in terms of said tapestry. Something like China Town is pretty cool to me and exactly what I had in mind when juxtaposing cities to the outlands where your choice is often between mayo and Miracle Whip. Clearly, there is another side to both locales pos and neg. Regardless, living in either informs our outlook greatly. It can be hard to find a place--anywhere--that you can close your eyes and not hear any extraneous man made noise and this also, sadly, informs our outlook. Politics and "current events" are more seasonal than we realize. What was the biggest story in the national news on 9-10-2001?

How a Movie from the '90s Predicted the 2012 ElectionBy:Daniel O'Brien December 07, 2012 195,240 viewsAdd to FavoritesEmail

Before the first vote was cast in the 2012 presidential election, everyone was already sick of talking about the 2012 presidential election. It's almost statistically impossible that you're not sick of it at this point, when there are so many other stories to dominate the news. (Kate Middleton is having Chris Brown's neck tattoo! I think. I really only know things about movies and presidents.)

But I wanted to write this piece now, because it involves looking back on the election, and it's way more effective to understand something after it happens, not while it's happening. My goal is to put the 2012 election into context, but not historical context -- movie context. If you're anything like me, you don't understand anything unless it's pushed through the lens of pop culture (I see all of my friends as analogues of characters from either The Breakfast Club or Jurassic Park, and when I go to restaurants, I order food by saying things like "Bring me a macaroni and cheese that looks as good as the one that Kevin made but frustratingly never ate in Home Alone"). So, I'm going to tell you the story of this election via movies.

It will be weird.

Act I: Mitt Romney is the Nominee in a Wacky Fish-Out-of-Water Comedy!

See: Coming to America, The Terminal

The media's version of Romney when he first received the nomination was your classic foreign fish-out-of-water story. In movies like Coming to America, or in the Saturday Night Live "Wild and Crazy Guy" sketches, the fun comes from the fact that you've got this outsider with all of his weird and wacky customs trying to fit in in America. He talks different. His clothes are different. He doesn't understand basic human social cues. Comedy! The fun comes from watching him struggle to adjust as he misunderstands and misuses common local customs that are utterly foreign to him.

In the case of the 2012 election, Romney wasn't a foreign fish out of water; he was a robot fish.

Or alien fish.

Either way, you've got a guy so clearly out of touch with the mainstream that he barely knows how to dress like us.

"Hey y'all, what ... what are ... y'all ... doing?"

We loved his constant inability to connect to or bond with other people. We loved pouncing on his interviews and speeches, because he spoke with the kind of practiced, formal intensity of an alien trying desperately to fit in with our hu-man language -- like in November of 2011, when he strapped on the ole' mom jeans and attended one of those fake events designed to look like a casual town hall meeting with real Americans. The whole goal of these things is to affect an informal, "Hey I'm a cool substitute teacher; let me rap atcha" vibe, but it was full of Romney saying things like "Your story about dust regulation captures my interest," which, yes, is a direct quote, in an event designed to make Romney seem accessible and human. Just Google "Mitt Romney robot" and waste the rest of your afternoon questioning whether or not he actually is one. The evidence is ... fairly compelling

And that was the story for a while, in the media and among pundits and comedians. Let's watch while Mitt Romney adorably struggles to adjust to our hu-man lifestyle. But that wasn't the whole story. That was just the first act.

There's not a whole lot of mileage to be had out of a fish-out-of-water story, and the election cycle is long, so about half way through, the media needed to change things up. They spent all of Act I beating Romney down and making fun of how silly and ridiculous and robotic he was just so they could dramatize his spectacular rise to glory in Act II, the Inspiring Sports Movie. President Obama was the seemingly unstoppable powerhouse of politics, and Romney was your scrappy, up-and-coming underdog, which is the only time that's ever been true of a middle-aged white guy who owns somewhere between three and a dozen homes.

That was the story when Romney and Obama debated for the first time, and everyone in the media was talking about how Romney surprised everyone and demolished Obama.

Fox News"We literally ran out of cigarettes after this one."

This was the who-saw-it-coming come-from-behind victory-in-the-making that serves as the DNA for all of the best underdog sports movies. Win or lose, Romney was going to lift himself up from obscurity, overcome impossible odds and end the day as a hero. Like Rudy. Like Rocky. Like the Little Giants.

In the end, of course, it couldn't be any of those movies, because those movies didn't reflect what actually happened.

What actually happened was that Obama was always going to win this race. For starters, 51 percent of Americans liked Obama personally and his policies, and 30 percent liked him even if they didn't like his policies. Also, it's really hard to unseat an incumbent; of the 43 presidents (or 44 presidencies) we've had, the incumbent lost only 10 times. To bring things even closer to home, our own David Wong, who monitors election polls closer than anyone I've ever met, pointed out that even after a $3 billion campaign was waged, and even after Romney's "horrible 47 percent gaffe," and even after Obama's "lackluster debate performance," in two years, the polls almost never changed. Obama was the favorite to win this back in 2010, and after two years, the polls moved more in his favor by only a point and a half. Obama had this. Always.

Always.

Immediately, people are going to disagree with that concept (which is silly, because Obama did win). While there was always a chance that the president would commit some colossal blunder or mismanage a disaster or punt a baby or do anything else that might cost him the election, going strictly by polling numbers (and by listening to the guys who analyze polling data and draw conclusions professionally, who are very good at it), the president had this one in the bag. That's why a year ago the GOP was trotting out Herman Cain and Rick Perry and that other clown car of lunatics as possible candidates instead of any of the actual serious contenders. Guys like Governor Chris Christie or Jeb Bush weren't going to even pretend to run in 2012; losing to Obama meant not getting a shot to run in 2016, when they actually might have a chance of winning (depending on who the Democrats run, or if the world ends in some apocalyptic firestorm of socialized marriage and mandatory gayness by then).

That's how a guy like Mitt Romney, an inaccessible, uncharismatic, inconsistent smile-robot, gets taken seriously as a candidate. But that's a boring story, and a boring presidential election story is absolutely poisonous to political blogs and 24-hour news channels. In the way that retail stores rely on Christmas shopping to make the majority of their profits for the year, political blogs and analysts and news networks put a ton of eggs in the election basket. They need people to pay attention to them during election season, but an election that's in the bag -- an election with no inherent story -- isn't worth talking about or watching. So what do you do? You invent the story. You create a narrative. You tell the American people that a done deal is a nail-biting horse race, and you pray that they believe you. You lie.

That's why the media invented and started pushing the Rudy or Rocky narrative, the story about the goofy underdog who surprised everyone by defying the odds and becoming a real contender. Even though Rocky lost in Rocky, that still doesn't make it the perfect analogue for this election, because at least Rocky had a shot, and Romney never did. It's a great boxing movie, but it's not this election.

The actual narrative at play was little-seen '90s boxing/entertainment satire The Great White Hype.

See: The Great White Hype

The Great White Hype is about a boxer, James Roper (Damon Wayans), who, as standing champion, is so good that no opponent wants to face him, and no networks want to carry his fights because they're over so quickly that they're boring. No one makes money on a fight that's over in 25 seconds. Reverend Sultan (Samuel L. Jackson) is a flamboyant promoter, basically the Don King of this boxing universe. He, like the media in this past election cycle, knows that he doesn't need to find an opponent who can beat the champ; he just needs to sell the public on the idea that he has.

He needs to tell a story.

Getty"I want to tell you a little tale about an absurdly wealthy boy named Mitt, just like the baseball glove ..."

So Reverend Sultan plucks from obscurity amateur boxer Terry Conklin (Peter Berg at his best), and the hype parade begins. He releases a number of promos of Conklin (the only boxer to ever knock out Roper in the amateur division) looking tough and strong and intimidating. Roper, by comparison (insulted that he has to waste his time fighting an obscure idiot of a boxer), looks bored and lethargic. He doesn't take his training seriously. He doesn't cut any exciting promos. He doesn't even seem like he wants to fight. Just for good measure, Reverend Sultan plays up the race angle (Roper is black, Conklin is white), and it sweeps the whole nation up into a frenzy. Money starts pouring in.

Conklin rallies millions of fans who really see him as the one guy who could unseat the champ (and the millions of racists who see him as a white guy and are happy about it). He makes plans for his future and sees a world where he's the real champion. He sees how distracted the current champ appears, he buys into everything that Reverend Sultan feeds him and he steps into the ring with positivity and energy and passion and a strong overhand right and ...

GettyAnd the multimillionaire ruling class underdog wins against all odds!

... is knocked out handily in one round. Handily. And that was always the plan. The Reverend (the media) builds up some poor, obscure schmuck who never stood a real chance of winning (Romney), and even though people think the current champ lost his edge (how many people blogged and screamed and scream-blogged about how Romney "devastated" Obama in the first debate, even though that debate was just average?), he easily won. The Reverend got the nation swept up in a story that wasn't real and made a ton of money doing it. The truth didn't change -- the champ still won, it still happened quickly, and the fight itself still wasn't interesting -- but the narrative changed, and that was all Reverend Sultan needed to do.

I'm not reaching to draw parallels just because I love The Great White Hype. It's not like I'm stretching the truth and bending facts to point out similarities between the 2012 election and Space Jam (which I could also do). The similarities are right there for anyone to see, even down to the race angle that dominated both the movie and the political dialogue of the last campaign season. If you want to go even further, you can say that Nate Silver was Marvin Shabazz (the legitimate voice of reason that no one was listening to), and Dick Morris was Jeff Goldblum's Mitchell Kane (the idiot who got so caught up in the hype that he backed the wrong horse and it likely cost him his career), but only say that around a very specific type of person. Which is to say, a person who knows The Great White Hype as intimately as he knows presidential elections. Which is to say, uh ... me.

Whelp, that's the least accessible joke I've ever used to end a column.

Daniel O'Brien is Cracked's senior writer (ladies) and could make a legitimate case for Space Jam as equally representative of the 2012 election (GOP, or should I say, Monstars???).

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